Rhinitis
by lavellanpls
Summary: For the tumblr prompt: "someone brings the other a gift of food or flowers that the other is allergic to." No one had ever brought him flowers before.
Cullen opened the door to his office that morning to the surprise sight of Lavellan bent over his desk. She turned at the sound of his forced cough, eyes alight. " _Commander,_ " she greeted with a roguish smile. "Just the boy I was looking for."

She brought him a bouquet of hand-picked flowers, which Cullen was certain was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for him. He was violently allergic to about half of them, which was…less sweet. It was fine, though. He watched her bend to arrange them in a vase atop his desk, a smudge of dirt unknowingly streaked across her temple, and he couldn't remember life ever being so fine.

"Sorry if some of them are kind of…broken." She gave a tentative poke to a drooping bloom. "I had to get pretty sneaky with my picking methods. They _really_ don't want people getting to these."

He could only laugh. "Don't the Chantry sisters object to you stealing their flowers?"

"Exceptionally," she said. "But personally I like to think of it as a poignant lesson on the nature of fate and mortality. See, from a cosmic perspective, life is a lot like a flower garden. And sometimes, a thief is going to steal your flowers when you aren't looking and use them to seduce her boyfriend." She shrugged. "Also, I think technically they're my flowers. Or…the Inquisition's, and thus mine by proxy? Either way. The lesson stands."

"How is that about fate and mortality, exactly?"

"It's a metaphor."

"It's not." But his smile cracked into a grin. "What was that last part again?"

"About everything being mine?"

"About seducing?"

"Well obviously that's what they're for." She took a step back to admire her handiwork—a lovely bouquet of half-crushed blossoms. "Sex flowers," she announced decidedly. "My favorite kind."

"Aren't you supposed to use roses for seduction?"

"These are prettier," she argued, and draped her arms around his neck with a slow-growing grin. "So are they working?"

"I feel very seduced," he assured. Also a little itchy.

But she didn't need to know that.

She pushed herself up on her toes to press a kiss to his jaw, and Cullen was sure he'd never felt better in his entire life. The feeling flagged when he sat down at his desk and violently sneezed. "A cold," he explained away with a wave. "My apologies."

Lavellan pulled herself up to fold neatly atop his desk and listed off each flower's name in Elven, a string of lyrical gibberish. Cullen couldn't think of a sound more beautiful. She pointed to a bundle of Crystal Grace—the direct culprit behind his watering eyes—and purred, " _Gail'lealis._ "

"Gal…lial…is," he attempted, stiff. " _Gayleolis_."

" _Gail'lealis,_ " she corrected, and poked at a broken stalk of Blood Lotus. " _Galanorun'theneras._ "

"Are you making these up?"

"Not yet, but stay on your toes, because I definitely will. Ooh, here, this one's easy: _Gaildahlas_."

" _Gaildahlas,_ " he slowly recited, eyes fixed on the careful shaping of her lips. Her enthusiastic nod of approval made his heart melt.

At least now, he supposed, he could identify his tormenter in Elven.

Lilith left with a wink and a wave, called off by some other pressing duty, and Cullen was left with a mountain of reports to work on and a glazed, hazy smile.

She'd actually brought him _flowers_.

A dull ache in his sinuses drew his attention back to the bouquet of allergens sat primly on his desk corner. A vivid array of stolen flowers. Cullen already felt the telltale itching behind his eyes—a familiar irritation from a childhood spent sneezing outdoors. He sniffled. Perhaps his gift would be a bit short-lived. They were lovely, but…

He looked at the wilting blooms of red and imagined them clasped tight in dirty hands. Imagined matching crimson lips and a cackling laugh that echoed through Skyhold's stone halls as she sprinted from fussing Chantry sisters. They were beautiful, just like Lavellan—his very own elven equivalent of a bruised red wildflower. The fact they were very minutely killing him was of little concern.

He ground the heel of his palm against his eye and tried very hard not to sneeze. Perhaps he could leave them just a few days more.

A week later, and the flowers hadn't moved. They still sat untouched in their vase, encircled by a carpet of fallen petals. They still smelled as sweetly as the day Lavellan gathered them up in her hands and presented them. And Cullen was still dying.

Every morning he stood before his desk, eyes swollen red, and tried to convince himself to throw the damned things out. He found his nose dripping so often he'd accidentally rubbed it raw, an observation loudly pointed out by Sera. ("Oi, _Cully-Wully,_ your face supposed to look like that? 'Cause from here it looks like your nose is 'bout to fall off.") He'd gotten quite used to not entirely breathing, but the pressure building in his skull was starting to throb.

And yet.

He couldn't bear to throw them out. Murderous as they were, they were a gift. From _Lilith,_ no less. Hand picked with him in mind. Each time he glanced up at them he felt a dizzy swell of elation—a mix of pride and horrid, wonderful adoration that left his head foggy.

Or perhaps that was the allergies again.

Still. Each time he looked at them he was reminded of Lavellan—of Elven names and sweet promises and arms pulling tight around him—and Cullen would gladly trade all of his comfort for that simple reminder.

Maker help him, he'd nearly lost them to the efforts of a very thorough maid, one afternoon, but snagged the vase out of her hands just as she went to dump it over the ramparts' edge. The vase hit his chest with a thump, and his erupting sneeze sent a burst of petals into the air. At the maid's befuddled stare he only swiped at his nose and offered, "It's a cold."

His men stopped coming into his office, opting instead to address him from the safety of the doorway. Out in the training yard, their soldiers kept a wary distance. Cassandra inquired after him one day, suggesting he visit their healers, but Cullen waved her concern away with a very stuffy _tsk_.

"Just a cold," he lied.

Leliana almost ruined him when she paused in passing and asked, "Have you perchance visited the garden recently, Commander? You seem terribly-"

" _Cold,_ " he blurted. "I've got a cold."

"…a cold?" Her nose crinkled just _so,_ the slightest touch of suspicion. "If you insist," she conceded, but Cullen would swear he caught the lilt of a smirk in her tone. "Let me know if you feel better," she said. "I'll send you some lovely get-well flowers."

Maker, he hoped she wouldn't.

At one point Lavellan's awful cat leapt atop his desk and knocked the vase to the floor, and Cullen spent _ages_ painstakingly gathering what was left of his flowers back together. By the time he was done he'd gone through two handkerchiefs and was in dire need of a nap. An impressive feat, for someone who very starkly did _not_ have a cold.

The charade lasted nearly to the week's end, until late one morning when Lilith marched into his office and slammed her hands flat atop his desktop.

"Oh my god," she announced. "You would honestly just let me kill you, wouldn't you?"

"I…what?"

She jammed an accusing finger at his vase of dying flowers. "You're allergic to these! _And you still have them!_ "

"It's just a-" He almost said 'cold,' but thought better. "…how long have you known?" he finished instead.

" _Technically_ it's in your personal file, so all-in-all about…a year. But I _may_ have forgotten about it until very recently. Also you are… _very obviously_ allergic. Visibly. Audibly."

"It's not that ba-"

" _Spiritually_ ," she finished.

He buried his face in his hands with a sigh. "Well, I don't…! I don't know. They were…sweet. And…" He felt his cheeks grow warm, for once matching his nose. "No one's ever given me flowers before."

For a moment Lilith only stared at him, calculating that particular statement. Her deliberation broke with a crooked smile. "Well, I've never given someone flowers they were _allergic to_ and then had them keep them before, so I guess we're even." She silenced any further protests with a cool kiss to his cheek. "I'll find something better to seduce you with," she vowed. "Preferably something hypoallergenic."

"It was a lovely gesture," he tried. "Truly."

"They were stolen property anyway. Sort of."

"They were lovely," he maintained. "Thank you."

He watched Lilith toss the wilted remnants over the ramparts wall with a congested sort of melancholy. They really were lovely, despite actively working to kill him. It truly was a shame. A bundle of dead Crystal Grace fluttered down into the mist before being swallowed by swirling snow. "What were they called, again? Gala…something?"

" _Gail'lealis,_ " she supplied, laughing. "Alternatively named: Not For Cullen."

Yes. He supposed that was apt.

The next afternoon Cullen strolled into his office to find his desk cluttered with rocks. He picked one up to roll between his fingers, smile creeping larger. On the center of every stone, Lavellan had painted a flower. On the back, she'd scrawled their names in Elven.

" _Two of the names are fake,"_ a familiarly penned note read. _"Try and guess which ones."_


End file.
